On Tuesday, WUFT (a local PBS affiliate) was interviewing me for a story about my foundation. Later that day, the opposing attorney in one of the cases I was handling, after telling me in the week before that he would let me know told me we would not be rescheduling some hearing we had set on Wednesday. On Tuesday night I find out that the next morning I'm in court, in full armor, in front of a judge. Dressing up, and wheeling myself to a courthouse I have never been before, making sure I know where it is and that I get there on time is to me always just about the most stressful art of the job. But at end of the day, I'm an attorney- just like everybody else, wheelchair or no wheelchair, no excuses. This is what I do. I decided to get up before six just to make sure I had few hours to spend just in case of some emergency. I was so afraid I'd oversleep that I barely slept that night. What can I say, I'm still pretty new to this. The one thing I noticed is that the more I got to do it, the better at it I was. I was amazed to see that when I was speaking I didn't feel much stress at all, I was clear and confident and it was actually a bit of a fun. Turns out, meeting a judge I have never seen before and finding the right room on the correct floor was the only part I was nervous about. And then I go in and I do my job. I'm tired but I tell myself, I can power through it. You win or you lose, it doesn't really matter than much, all that does is that I advocate my position strongly, be attentive to the judge and the other lawyer in the room, say and do what I'm supposed to. And then it's over. I remember I have a meeting with a software developer in the afternoon. I'm switching back into my nonprofit work gear. We are supposed to find new ways to find my foundation. The meeting's at 4. I think I'm out of the court by 12. After I'm done updating all my clients on my phone, another hour or two goes by. I don't really have time to take a nap. I barely have time to go home and change out my shirt. Getting out of my suit entirely requires getting out of my chair and I knew there was no time for that. The 4 o'clock meeting was with someone I've been trying to schedule a meeting with for about a month. But that's OK, I can order a raspberry white mocha and you guessed it- power through it. When I get home after, although the adrenaline's gone and I haven't slept much in the last 36 hours, I can't really do more than a few hours of nap time. Then I think, I should go out. My friends are grabbing a drink somewhere, I'm done, I'm free, it's been a while since I got to do something fun. I'm not sure if I really want to or is it something I say to prove to myself that I'm not that old, that I can still keep up. As I think that I can probably "power through it".- a funny thing happens. The power actually goes down in all of downtown Gainesville. No places are open and nothing to prove, only source of light from cars occasionally passing by my window. For an hour if not a little longer all of life feels suspended. What is the universe trying to tell me? I call a friend so we can see how the city is handling itself in the dark. As we walk the streets we decide it's too rainy and cold to be out anyway.
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